Dream Signs Coco Miller

The final spot in the Dream's training camp has been filled with the signing of Coco Miller, a former standout at the University of Georgia and the identical twin of Kelly Miller who plays for the Phoenix Mercury. Miller has been a guard for the Washington Mystics for the last eight years.

Coco Miller had a horrible year last year. Her best year was at 24, and she's sort of declined every year since then.

However, a) she is an experienced player, who
b) is willing to accept limited minutes.

The impression is that she's been signed to a regular season contract and not a training camp contract. Here's the final training camp list. (I can't wait till Leuchanka shows up.)

A: Players Who Played Last Year

C Snow (free agent signing)

F/C de Souza
F Lacy
F Lyttle

G/F Castro Marques
G Latta
G Young
G C. Miller

B: Players Who Didn't Play Last Year, But Whom We Expect To Play

C Anderson
G Teasley
F Holdsclaw

C: Players Acquired by Draft or Who Have Not Signed a Contract

C Leuchanka
G/F McCoughtry
G Lehning
F Gipson

Atlanta Dream Owner Gives $100 Million to Habitat for Humanity

If the recession/depression is hurting the real estate business, it must not be huring Ron Terwilliger, the owner of the Atlanta Dream. Terwilliger just gave the largest contribution to Habitat for Humanity in its history.

To which I respond, "Good job, Mr. Terwilliger."

Iziane, Bassul and Hortência

The big drama in Brazilian women's basketball regards the future of Iziane Castro Marques and Paulo Bassul on the Brazil women's national team.

Last summer, in the pre-Olympic tournament, Iziane refused the instructions of coach Paulo Bassul to go out late in a game when she had essentially been benched early on. Iziane ended up dismissed from the team, Paulo Bassul's team suffered because he didn't have Izi.

Brazilian women's basketball legend Hortência (now the director of women's basketball in Brazil) is trying to bring the two to compromise. However, Iziane leaves Brazil on Saturday to report to Atlanta. Furthermore, Hortência wants to make it clear that Paulo Bassul's job is not in jeopardy, so it looks like

a) no one is going to be satisfied, and
b) it's a big PR failure for Brazilian women's basketball.

(Heads up to the Painel do Basquete Feminino blog.)

Signs and Portents

This is a true story.

This evening I was walking along with my wife outside in our little suburban enclave. The houses are generally set back on hills and the area is relatively quiet.

As we walked, we saw a red looking object rolling towards us. At first, I thought it was a kickball, but it turned out to be a basketball. It rolled all the way down the road from about 100 yards away, and it stopped.

I retrieved the basketball. Someone came running by and I thought "Aha! The owner of the basketball!" But as it turns out, he was an ordinary jogger who denied ownership.

Surely someone must have lost this basketball. It was well worn but it looked in good condition. My wife and I stood around for five minutes, but there wasn't a soul in sight.

I didn't want to abandon the basketball. I simply picked it up as claimed property, and as of now, I own a basketball. This is the only basketball I have ever owned. It must be a sign of something, even if the only sign is "maybe you ought to try playing some basketball."

Inverse Correlation

Hits on "WNBA is a failure" on Google: 107,000
Hits on "NBA Development League is a failure"/"NBA D-League is a failure" on Google: 85,500 (*)

Average attendance for WNBA in 2008: 7,931
Average attendance for NBA Development League in 2008-09: 2,713

(*) - combined results of both searches

WNBA Live Access Launches

It's all spelled out right here at the WNBA website:

The WNBA today announced the launch of WNBA LiveAccess, a new feature on WNBA.com that will provide fans with free access to more than 200 live game Webcasts - the league’s most comprehensive offering - throughout the 2009 WNBA season.

For the first time, fans around the world will be able to access live game Webcasts on individual team Web sites. Some blackouts of live games will apply. All of the WNBA LiveAccess games will then be archived for on-demand viewing.


(* * *)

“This expanded offering of games is in response to the demand from fans who have requested an opportunity to see more of their favorite team's games and more games from around the league,” said WNBA President Donna Orender. “The passion for the WNBA continues to expand around the globe, making it important to connect with our fans in-arena, on television and online. And with the level of play, the skill and athleticism in the WNBA at an all-time high, this is the perfect time to provide multiple platforms for our fans to experience our game.”

Can I get an "Amen?" Can I get a "hell yeah!"

Sports Illustrated and Chamique Holdsclaw

It looks like a future issue of Sports Illustrated will be highlighting Chamique Holdsclaw of the Atlanta Dream.

Some conversation overheard on Twitter:

@Chold1 (Chamique Holdsclaw): Just finished part 1 of a photo shoot for Sports Illustrated. I was just doing some bball drills and then she took some stills.

@MissChantelle (Chantelle Anderson): Just got done talking to the SI reporter about Mique. Bout to eat and go work out.

Since I subscribe to SI, I'm looking forward to reading it.

Can Blogging Ever Replace Journalism?

I've recently read the testimony of David Simon to a Senate Subcommittee regarding the state of newspapers in the United States. You don't have to a serious student of journalism to realize that newspapers are having a hard time of it. It seems that a month hardly passes before you read about some newspaper in America either scaling down or going under.

Simon proposes a couple of remedies to the problem. One remedy is to for newspapers to move behind a pay wall, because Simon believes that the present model of giving content away for free isn't working. The other remedy is for newspapers to become non-profit corporations and move away from the news-for-profit model.

He is particularly pessimistic about the internet as a source for news. Since most blogs (including this one) simply repost excerpts from online news sources, he makes the point that the parasites (blogs) are killing the hosts (newspapers). Furthermore, he states that in order for newspapers to be worth the price of an on-line subscription, they're going to have to do what blogs can't do - create original content from investigative journalism, through the cultivation of sources and through the ability to devote themselves to news gathering. Amateur bloggers have neither the time nor the financial freedom to do either.

Simon has some good points. I began to think about Simon's points with regard to the state of the WNBA in particular and the state of sports journalism in general. This led me to think about what it is that exactly sports journalists - or what any kind of journalists - do.

So what is news? Here's my working definition: news is something that you didn't know before and that has happened relatively recently. As a result, sports journalists have to be present at sports events as they happen in hopes of not only presenting the facts at hand - the game results and statistics - but also to prove insight in the form of quotes and speaking to personnel who are unavailable to the general public.

A sport writer is at his or her most useful when he or she can provide information through investigation and cultivation of sources. Which leads to the question: is this what's going on in sports journalism?

I think the answer is "no" for the most part. Most sports writers today don't supply much of anything that isn't readily available elsewhere. They can't be the first with the boxscore anymore. The WNBA (for example) realizes that its fans want statistics. Those are available at the website, sometimes in real time. Sometimes, the league teams will even supply quotes for writers on deadline. There's nothing taking place at a sports event that couldn't be obtained by any of the other writers present - all of them are eating from the same plate, so to speak. All any individual writer is doing choosing what he or she cares to pass on, and all of the writers usually have the same number of choices. A give writer might make the decision that quote A is more important than quote B, or choose to emphasize one fact or ignoring another, but its unlikely that any one writer at the event could supply something that some other writer somewhere wouldn't have picked up. There's no "investigation" in your usual post-game piece.

As a result, bloviation has taken the place of investigation. Since few writers can scoop the others because all are presented the same buffet of facts, the writer can only distinguish himself or herself either through being a better storyteller, or more likely, through writing an opinion piece. The impression I get is that the big money in sports journalism isn't in covering the beat anymore - it's in being a feature columnist like Bill Simmons, or in being a television talking head. (The joke about sports journalism is that every sportwriter has to have an opinion about everything, whether he knows anything about it or not.) The present philosophy seems to be "why not just let the AP cover the games?" Sports journalism is not much more than a collection of "This I Believe" columns, some AP game writeups and a back page of statistics.

Frankly, I don't need to pay 50 cents to read someone's opinion about a game that we both saw with our own two eyes or someone trying to play amateur comedian on Page Two. There are hundreds of guys on the internet giving out those opinions for free, and if I want chuckles there's the Chuckle Hut out on Route 12.

Granted, some journalists have the "name power" to command an interview with the coach or the general manager. In the past, this was a given - sports writers commanded the leverage of an implicit threat: talk to me or I'll just write what I want to. Back in the days of two papers and no television, this power could be used as a cudgel. However, today's media is a mile wide and an inch deep and a multitude of outlets compete for the public's divided attention. Such threats can be laughed off now because few sports writers possess such a powerful platform. There's no more Dick Young in sports.

So to sum up:

* sports reporting is at its best with investigation and in-depth reporting
* for various reasons, this isn't being done any more
* all writers select from the same pool of facts, and therefore
* opinion sports journalism is now pre-eminent.

So what options do sports bloggers have?

Clearly, the same facts about the game are available to us as to the general press. We can get those facts in real time. Bloggers can't get game quotes, but sometimes the teams will even supply those, and 95 percent of game quotes aren't really "scoops" of any sort. The major advantage print journalists have is that they at least have access to the movers and shakers. Sports bloggers don't, for the most part.

However, sports bloggers can do some things that print journalists can't. The chief advantage is that a print journalist's time is both divided and directed. Print journalists are expected to be able to cover more than one sport these days. Despite the fact that they are paid full time for their skills, how much of that time will be spent thinking about the problems of any specific sport?

The stereotype of internet bloggers being obsessive geeks becomes a strength instead of a weakness. Sports bloggers - writing from the prospective of fans - spend a lot of time thinking about sports. I would dare to venture that I spend much more time thinking about the WNBA in my spare time than the print journalist for, say, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that attends the WNBA game. This is because my plate is free in my spare time, and she only has so many hours in her day. She might have to cover a different sports event every day. How much intellectual firepower can she direct to the WNBA?

Furthermore, her time is directed. She doesn't have the leisure to think about what she wants to. She has an editor who wants to please the bulk of the readership, and that editor tells her what she has to do. This means reporting about "football and spring football" at least in Atlanta. If she becomes really good at her job she might be hired and given a beat, or if she's even better she might be given an opinion column and can write about what she chooses. But without a full time beat or an opinion platform her priorities are set by someone else and her work is closely monitored.

Sports bloggers can set their own priorities. They're not only mavens regarding their chosen sports but they're their own editors. (If you read this blog, you can see how that could be a detriment.) If I want to do a statistical study of the WNBA for a full week, there's no editor to stop me. I only have to please myself. This gives a sports blogger freedom that a reporter might envy.

There is still the disadvantage in that the journalist can speak to the participants directly. Furthermore, there is the strong possibility that newspapers with an on-line presence will move to a subscription-only basis - deny sports bloggers the chance to mooch off free content. The only sources a sports blogger will have would be the statistics and the press releases. Surely, nothing can be done with that, right?

Allow me to mention the second advantage sports bloggers could have over sports journalists. This would involve thinking more like a faux-historian and less like a faux-journalist. I am reminded of the great writer I. F. Stone and his investigative writing. What Stone would do is take a look at the public record and examine the record for gaps and incongruities. A lot can be found in the most pedestrian writing if you know where to look for it.

For example, take the press release about the waiver of Jessica Morrow. The information is combined in the same press release that announces the signing of Marlies Gipson. There's nothing said about why Morrow was waived - most press releases don't do that - but it certainly begs the question of why a third-round draft pick suddenly gets dropped without so much as showing up to mini-camp.

If the release is taken at face value, it just becomes one more available fact out of many. If you examine the information in depth, however, it suggests a mystery. I. F. Stone was great at mining such mysteries, in trying to determine what the press didn't tell you and why it didn't.

Sports bloggers are going to have to become good at mining such pedestrian data sources. It's something that sports journalists can't do, and it could be a real advantage in blogging becoming an alternative media. A good blogger has to bring something to the table that a journalist can't bring - either a skill at statistics, or a grounding in the league's history, or a skill for information analysis. I know several internet bloggers that have taught me more about the WNBA than the WNBA's reporters ever did (or tried to do).

It's not that sports bloggers are going to "replace" journalism. Rather, it's that sports blogging is going to provide a type of content that sports journalists can't (yet) provide. Right now, journalists aren't so much providing content as they are providing opinion. I'm in complete agreement that sports journalists have to give us the content we want - original investigative journalism about our chosen sport, whether that sport be the NBA or WNBA - or readers are going to go elsewhere.

Dream Sign Marlies Gipson to Training Camp Contract

Even though there is no press release from the Dream, the Dream have signed Marlies Gipson to a training camp contract.

Gipson is a 6-0 power forward out of Kansas State - she can provide some familiar company for second-round Dream draft pick Shalee Lehning. Gipson averaged 13.4 ppg/5.1 rpg/1.4 apg. The only injury hx I can find is from Wikipedia, which mentions a knee cap injury in 2006-07.

Her draft profile from WNBA Draft Net is here.

This still leaves one spot open in training camp. The list now looks like this:

A: Players Who Played Last Year

C Snow (free agent signing)

F/C de Souza
F Lacy
F Lyttle

G/F Castro Marques
G Latta
G Young

B: Players Who Didn't Play Last Year, But Whom We Expect To Play

C Anderson
G Teasley
F Holdsclaw

C: Players Acquired by Draft or Who Have Not Signed a Contract

C Leuchanka
G/F McCoughtry
G Lehning
F Gipson

Dream Waive Jessica Morrow

The WNBA put it the release of 2009 third-round Atlanta Dream draft pick Jessica Morrow on their transactions board, but there appears to be no press release of any kind.

I can't figure this out at all - yeah, Morrow was just a lowly draft pick but there was no harm in giving her a look-see.

Here's what training camp on May 17th looks like now:

A: Players Who Played Last Year

C Snow (free agent signing)

F/C de Souza
F Lacy
F Lyttle

G/F Castro Marques
G Latta
G Young

B: Players Who Didn't Play Last Year, But Whom We Expect To Play

C Anderson
G Teasley
F Holdsclaw

C: Players Acquired by Draft or Who Have Not Made a Commitment

C Leuchanka
G/F McCoughtry
G Lehning

We're down to thirteen players. We have two camp spaces. Hmm...are we thinking of signing another veteran...?

2009 WNBA Preview

It's been a good seven months since the Detroit Shock won their third WNBA title. Seven months is too long for an off-season, and even though there is the minor manner of training camp most WNBA fans can't wait that long to peer into their crystal balls and attempt some sort of divination through the murky clouds of injuries and unanswered free agent questions. The reality of the WNBA is that the entire season for a team can hinge on a smart trade or an injury in training camp, and no amount of number crunching can replace conjecture.

Imperfect knowledge, however, has never stopped humankind from making predictions before. It won't stop us.

Eastern Conference

1. Detroit Shock (24-10) - WNBA followers seem more worried about the machinations of "Trader Bill" Laimbeer than they are about the intact core of players he brings to the 2009 season. The only question marks involving this team deal with age - everyone is one year older and one year slower. Picking up Taj McWilliams-Franklin was the big trade for the Shock in 2008, and it was the final piece of the puzzle. Normally you'd expect the 38-year McWilliams-Franklin to lose a step, but Taj has had some very good seasons in her late 30s. Katie Smith will be 35 this year, but she's managed to remain productive since her days in the ABL. Cheryl Ford has hopefully recovered from the knee injury she suffered during the infamous Detroit-Los Angeles brawl. Even if the Fairy Dust runs out and some of the ancients of the Shock turn into pumpkins, expect Laimbeer to make another diabolic trade to restore the magic.

2. Indiana Fever (17-17) - In the weak Eastern Conference, finishing .500 can put you in second place. The Fever has shored up its roster with the addition of Yolanda Griffith, who should be a good fit for coach Lin Dunn's do-it-with-defense Fever. Last season's Most Improved Player - Ebony Hoffman - should improve yet against this season. Tamika Catchings went from a great player to merely a good one in 2008 due to foot and heel injuries - the Fever need Catch fully recovered to break past a .500 season.

3. New York Liberty (17-17) - From a #3 seed last year, the Liberty took the Detroit Shock to the full three games in the Eastern Conference finals. The Liberty will probably need another run of luck this year as well. Janel McCarville finally played up to expectations last year, but can she put the Liberty on her back for two years in a row? The problem is that McCarville doesn't have much help - when the next best player you have is Loree Moore, it means that McCarville will have to force the Liberty into greatness. Don't expect first-round draft pick Kia Vaughn to contribute much that first year.

4. Connecticut Sun (16-18) - Coach Mike Thibault had a young team playing above expectations last year - it earned him Coach of the Year honors. I'm still expecting Lindsay Whalen to regress back to the mean, but if she plays as well in 2009 as she did the previous two years, move Connecticut a notch higher. Asjha Jones played her most minutes ever last year and had her highest field goal shooting percentage ever as well. Is this a sign of great things to come or is it just an aberration? A lot is riding on Amber Holt to improve beyond a good rookie season and give Whalen and Jones some help because Tamika Whitmore won't be the answer.

5. Chicago Sky (15-19) - Finally, Sky fans have some hope. Chasity Melvin was traded but Sylvia Fowles will finally be healthy enough to play a full season…well, Sky fans hope so, anyway. Even playing only half the season "Big Syl" was good enough to make the WNBA's All-Rookie Team and her overseas performance with Russian team Spartak is good enough to make any WNBA GM take notice. With Candice Dupree, Jia Perkins and Armintie Price there is just enough there to make Chicago a playoff contender. If Syl is healthy and Kristi Toliver has a great rookie year then the Sky might become The Little Engine That Could in the playoffs.

6. Atlanta Dream (13-21) - Good news Dream fans! You will win at least three times as many games as you won last year (4). The bad news is that it won't get you into the playoffs. Atlanta's biggest move in the off-season was acquiring Chamique Holdsclaw, but a playoff season for Atlanta depends on three things: a) that Chamique will return to her previous form, b) that Nikki Teasley's knee problems are finally resolved, and c) that Tamera Young's second season will be an improvement over her first. Two of the three items listed might happen, but I wouldn't bet that all three would be true.

7. Washington Mystics (7-27) - Washington should just put up a sign outside the Verizon center - "Permanently Under Construction". New coach, new general manager, same lousy team…at least for 2009. Chasity Melvin isn't the solution to the loss of Taj McWilliams-Franklin and any hope of .500 is going to depend on the "Maryland Mafia" of Crystal Langhorne and Marissa Coleman. One ominous sign for 2009 - after Taj was traded the Mystics lost the final eight games of the season. If it was a tank job, then my sad counsel to Mystics fans is that it's just too much to expect for Coleman to turn the team around in her rookie year.

Western Conference

1. Minnesota Lynx (25-9) - WHAT?? For most WNBA followers, a 25-9 Lynx season would be something out of science fiction - yet it could happen. The 2008 Lynx got off to a great start winning six out of seven, but in the post-Olympics segment of the season the only teams they could beat were Washington and Indiana. This team lost close games due to youth, but that won't happen in 2009. Rookie Nicky Anosike started every game in her rookie season and should only be better this season. The Lynx have Seimone Augustus and WNBA Sixth Woman of 2008 Candice Wiggins, and there's a very good chance that Phoenix might regret the trade of Kelly Miller and rookie LaToya Pringle for Nicole Ohlde. Miller and Pringle bring real value to the Lynx, and the Lynx also picked up Renee Montgomery in the draft - a player many said should have been drafted #1. I didn't have Minnesota as much worse than the Sparks last year, and if there's any team that has been waiting for the chance to break free from mediocrity, it's the Lynx.

2. San Antonio Silver Stars (24-10) - Without the distraction of the Olympics and Becky Hammon playing for the Russkies, the Silver Stars can devote their total focus to more winning basketball. There's really not much difference between last year's Silver Stars and this year's Silver Stars. Hammon, Erin Buescher, and Sophia Young are all back, and when you have a core of good players unchanged from year to year, good things happen. However, my understanding is that Ann Wauters won't be in training camp…and has she signed that contract yet? If she doesn't, I'd drop the Silver Stars to fourth. Katie Mattera isn't even half of an Ann Wauters.

3. Phoenix Mercury (18-16) - Phoenix, we feel your pain. First, we find out that Penny Taylor probably won't be back in 2009. Then, the attempt to pick up Lauren Jackson fell through when she returned to play another year in Seattle. If either of those two scenarios had happened, it might have been a conference title for Phoenix in 2009; now, you're in third place and looking up. Of course, any team that has Diana Taurasi and Cappie Pondexter can't be all bad, but beyond that, the cupboard is bare. Something to ease the pain: Alison Bales will be a lot better than many think she is.

4. Seattle Storm (17-17) - Seattle Storm fans need to gather on center court and give Lauren Jackson a collective hug - her return might have saved the Storm from a last-place finish. Jackson returns with Sue Bird, and Shannon Johnson is still a good player even though she'll turn 35 this season. Beyond those three players, however, it's unlikely that any one else will step up, except maybe Camille Little.

5. Los Angeles Sparks (16-18) - Coach Michael Cooper will be leaving the Sparks after this year to coach the USC women's basketball team. Lisa Leslie has stated that she'll retire after this year. They got out while the getting was good. Lisa is going to hit 36 this year, and her heir apparent, Candace Parker, will miss part of the season due to pregnancy. The Sparks will find out that Betty Lennox can be just as miserable with a big time team like Los Angeles as she was with an expansion team. Tina Thompson will enjoy Lisa Leslie's company, but that might be the only enjoyable part of Los Angeles's season.

6. Sacramento Monarchs (13-21). So who replaces Yolanda Griffith in the hearts of Sacto fans? Rebekka Brunson, who is on the verge of moving from good to great? Ticha Penicheiro, who is still quite capable of great seasons? Crystal Kelly, who had a pretty good rookie season? I hope that the Monarchs fans take one of these three players - or all of them - to heart, because beyond that, they're strictly playing for a lottery spot.

Silver Stars Bible Study Camp To Open; Katie Mattera Newest Member

From the San Antonio Silver Stars:

SAN ANTONIO – The San Antonio Silver Stars have signed center Katie Feenstra Mattera to a free agent contract, Head Coach and General Manager Dan Hughes announced today. Per team policy, terms of the contract have not been released.
“We are pleased to have Katie join the Silver Stars,” said Hughes. “She will add an interior presence with strong rebounding, plus she is an outstanding teammate.”

Indeed. Katie Mattera's not as bad as some Dream fans made her out to be in 2008.

Let's see...Becky Hammon, Erin Buescher, Katie Mattera and draftee Megan Frazee...this team has God on speed dial.

My Life in Sports, Part II

When I was growing up, my general sports awareness expanded with the ascendance of the Cincinnati Reds. These were the Bench-Rose-Sparky Anderson-Ken Griffey Sr.-George Foster Reds. In 1975, they played a thrilling World Series against the Boston Red Sox that everyone in Kentucky must have watched. In 1976, the Reds swept the New York Yankees for back to back championships.

Cultural osmosis worked its magic. All that anyone could talk about at school were the Cincinnati Reds. Slurpee (or Slushie, I can't tell the difference) had a promotion where there slushie drinks would be sold in plastic replica baseball caps, one for each team. I rode my bike 20 minutes a day to the store where the caps were sold, and slushie by slushie I had the entire collection. I purchased a plastic replica Cincinnati Reds batting helmet. (My best friend at the time, inexplicably, became a Dodgers fan in the late 1970s. Maybe it wasn't inexplicable after all.)

I had always wanted to play baseball, but this was the first time I understood that there was a whole culture and history behind the game.

It was also then that I purchased my first sports-based game. It was Ethan Allen's All-Star Baseball. For those unfamiliar with it, the game consisted of circular cardboard disks. At the perimeter of each disk was a set of numbers. "1" stood for a Home Run. "10" stood for a strikeout. The disks were inserted into a disk holder, upon which was mounted a spinner. You spun the arrow and when the arrow stopped spinning, the arrow to which the number pointed indicated the result.

I was obsessed with this game. I played two entire seasons with it, making up my own schedules. Of course, I played the Cincinnati Reds. That's 328 games of All-Star Baseball. I only recorded the inning by inning scores. Batting stats were not included. I began to pick up copies of the Baseball Digest and read on my own.

Somehow, I learned about a game called Statis Pro Baseball. This game was a little more complicated. In the Ethan Allen game, there was no pitching component of the game - it was entirely offense driven, and you wanted pitchers with hitting stats since their pitching abilities would never enter the game. (Don Drysdale was highly valued.) Statis Pro, however, had Fast Action Cards that switched the action between a pitcher and a hitter, depending on how good (or bad) a pitcher was. There was a complicated chart involving rainouts, fights, and other ephemera.

I didn't really understand the rules of baseball very well, so my enjoyment of the game was limited. However, I appreciated the game's complexity.

When I was 15 years old, I rediscovered comic books. I had collected comics - sporadically - from the ages of 6 to 12. DC Comics only of course, the ones with Superman and Batman. I met someone at high school who would become my new best friend, who happened to be a much more serious comic collector. This was way back when Chris Claremont and John Byrne were writing the X-Men, introducing new compelling characters like Wolverine and writing the Dark Phoenix saga. Any interest I had in sports or sports gaming simply disappeared for a few years, smothered in my interest in comic books. I don't think I was interested in sports much from between the middle of high school to the end of my college years. Except for an attempt to try out for high school football, I was definitely not a sports kind of guy. And as for basketball, it was off the map completely.

Let's move on to graduate school. I found graduate school frustrating, because there was no way I could obtain the sheer white hot singularity of focus it took to succeed (my graduate major was mathematics). My attention not only started to wander, but I enjoyed myself more when it wandered, which was a bad sign. I began to look for diversions that would relieve the incredible tedium of grad school.

I was still following baseball, if but from a distance. I remember sitting in a dorm lounge where a friend and I mocked Kirk Gibson hobbling up to the plate during that Dodgers-A's World Series, and then sitting silently when Gibson hit the home run off Dennis Eckersley that won Game One for the Dodgers. My interest in baseball had picked up again, and around this time - my memory of when is unclear - I began to look for a new baseball game.

I found it in APBA. APBA is a card-based game not unlike Statis Pro Baseball. APBA, however, had a more devoted following. I played through another APBA season of games with the Cincinnati Reds of 1990.

I was also looking for other sports gaming diversions. Avalon Hill - a wargaming company owned all of the Statis Pro sports games - had a boxing game which I tried for a while. Then, while at a comic book/gaming store, I found a game with an intriguing title.

Statis Pro Basketball. More on that later in Part III.

Evaluating the WNBA Draft With Adjusted Wins Score

A long time ago, I introduced a linear metric called "Wins Score", which is one of my favorite metrics. I like it better than the WNBA's metric (Efficiency) because I believe that Efficiency overrates poor shooters.

Since then, there has been some by people involved in the statistical side of basketball whether "Wins Score" overrates rebounders. The Wins Score metric gives players one point for every rebound, regardless of whether the rebound was offensive or defensive. The argument - as well I understand it - is that in a lot of cases, rebounds will sort of come as a byproduct of just being there. Someone has to end up with the ball after a missed shot, or it just goes out of bounds.

Adjusted Wins Score (AWS) adjusts for the rebounds. It gives 0.7 points for all offensive rebounds, and 0.3 to the more numerous defensive rebounding. The resulting formula:

Adjusted Wins Score=

total points scored
+ 0.7 * offensive rebounds
+ 0.3 * defensive rebounds
+ steals
+ 0.5 * (assists + blocks)
- field goal attempts
- turnovers
-0.5 * (personal fouls + free throw attempts)

The correlation of Adjusted Wins Score to total teams wins is around 0.9 percent, if I recall correctly. The metric has a high degree of predictability "after the fact".

However, if you want to use AWS to predict the future, you have to make some tough decisions. The first is how to project future performance of a player based on past performance. The second problem is how to project initial performance for players who have never played before - draftees.

So how do you evaluate the draftees? We now have 12 years of data, which should allow us to make some kind of predictions. We can simply look at a draft position - #1, #2, #3 - and see how players have done historically in their first year of play. We could then compare a drafted player after the season to her ancestors, so to speak. We would compare Angel McCoughtry to every previous #1 draft pick between 1997 and 2008, we'd compare Marissa Coleman to every previous #2 draft pick, and so forth. Depending on how those comparisons measured up, we could then sort out which GM organizations drafted well and which didn't.

My first idea was to take the average AWS of all #1 picks, the average AWS of all #2 picks, etc. The problem is that very high values or very low ones would skew the average. If we go by the rule of mathematical average, you'd have to conclude that the Los Angeles Sparks organization were geniuses in drafting Candace Parker. They shouldn't be given huge amounts of credit for that - Candace Parker was clearly someone who would be a great player in the WNBA right away. We can at the very least give the Sparks organization credit in not passing up Parker, so they should at least get credit for doing something right.

Instead of using an average AWS, I would use the median AWS. The median of a set of numbers is just the dividing line between the top half of the values and the bottom half. If the set has an odd number of values, the median is the one that's smack in the middle; if the set has an even number of values the median is the average of the "highest low" and the "lowest high".

In those cases where a draft pick didn't play in the year when she was drafted, or never made it to the WNBA at all, I assigned a value of 0.0 for that given draft position and year. It seems fair, since AWS is an additive metric and the missing player had neither added nor subtracted from the team's total AWS.

For the top 39 positions in the AWS, here is the median AWS:



What do these numbers tell us?

First, let's look at how the players in 2008 stacked up in AWS. My grading scale:

50.0 AWS and above: A
10.0 - 49.9 AWS: B
0.0 - 9.9 AWS: C
-9.9 to -0.1 AWS: D
-10.0 AWS and below: F

Second, let's compare the sample median scores to some actual players: according to the table, the median AWS for a #1 draft pick is 38.4. Historically, they have proven to be "B" players in their first year of play. In 2008, Shameka Christon of the Liberty had a AWS of 38.1. We would expect Angel McCoughtry to be about as good in 2009 as Shameka Christon was in 2008 - probably a B or B+ player, not expected to be a superstar immediately. If Angel McCoughtry is at least this good, we give the Atlanta Dream organization kudos. If she proves to be sub-par, we knock the organization.

Third, there is some unevenness in the results. #6 picks have proven to be historically better than #5 picks - possibly because they don't have to bear the expectations that come with being a Top Five draft pick. #11 is also a good position for some reason. #7 has not been good, with most of the players drafted at #7 having a poor AWS in their first year. (And this year's #7 pick? Courtney Paris.)

Fourth, you can see that once you get to around to the #8 pick, the value of the drafted player in the first year is almost negligible. One you get past the mid second round, any player that puts up even average numbers should be considered an example of smart drafting. It might be the case that GMs make their reputations in the second and third rounds of the draft and not in the first rounds, where the good choices are fairly obvious.

It will be interesting to see how well this years draft picks turn out. I'll be watching, and calculating.

Ruth Riley, Miami Sol - Video

Riley, running back in the other direction after the basket.

Ruth Riley - the center for the Miami Sol - is interviewed. We get to see some very old Miami Sol-Detroit Shock footage and Riley plays a game of one-on-one with her interviewer. She also gives high school players some advice on how to make the WNBA.

The link to the video can be found right here. Riley refers to herself as a "power center" stating that most centers and power forwards tend to go outside, but she likes to hang around the basket.

She just looks...so young!

How to Fool People Into Thinking You Know Something about the WNBA

Hi! Let's say that you're involved in some sort of tedious internet argument. Suppose you want to try to fool other people into thinking that you're some sort of expert on the WNBA. Perhaps, you're claiming to be a WNBA ex-beat writer ("It was my years of experience as a WNBA beat writer that convinced me that women's basketball sucked.") However, when push comes to shove it proves that your knowledge of the WNBA sucks as much as you think women's basketball sucks. So how can you convince people that you are fully fluent with the league's successes and failures?

Well, you need search no further. We aim to please at Pleasant Dreams and will give you just enough information to pass yourself off as a WNBA expert, either on the internet or when you're arguing with your friends at the bar over who has to buy the next round of nachos.

Important Facts

1. Shorter season. The season is only 34 games long. An NBA season is over twice as long. If you include the playoffs an NBA season might be three times as long. (Rumor has it that the 2005 NBA Championship still isn't over yet.)

2. Shorter game. A WNBA game is only 40 minutes long. Before you decry the WNBA's low scoring, don't get caught in the trap lest someone reminds you that WNBA's games are over earlier. (One rejoinder that might save you in an argument is "Yes! And Thank God!" Your opponent might even forget your faux pas if you can find someone else to high-five.)

You get bonus points if you remember that the games were two 20-minute halves until 2005.

3. Same dimensions. The court is the same size. The players have uniforms and everything. The only differences are in the 3-point arc (which is closer) and the ball (which is one inch in diameter smaller).

4. Important teams to know. Any dumbass can say "Los Angeles" and "New York". Every professional league worth its salt can mention teams in Los Angeles and New York. The absolute minimum number of teams you need to know:

New York Liberty: The team in New York. It plays in Madison Square Garden.
Los Angeles Sparks: The team in Los Angeles. It plays in the Staples Center.
Detroit Shock: Three-time WNBA champions. Current defending champions. They have Bill Laimbeer as their head coach.
Houston Comets: Won the first four WNBA championships. Now defunct. You can always use this in your arguments. Don't let anyone mention the Chicago Stags or the Baltimore Bullets, teams that won championships in the early years of men's pro basketball that went under. (Shouting "Look! a bear!" is a good diversionary tactic.)

5. Important players to know. Let's give you one per current team.

Atlanta Dream: Chamique Holdsclaw. On the other hand, you might not be able to pronounce this. Skip that one.
Chicago Sky: Sylvia Fowles. "Big Syl". 6'6" tall, which is damned tall in the WNBA and under average height (6'7") in the NBA.
Connecticut Sun: Lindsay Whalen. Talk about how a high school player could pass the ball better than her. Ignore the women laughing behind you.
Detroit Shock: You just need to know Bill Laimbeer, the coach. Call him "Trader Bill" from his history of trades that inevitably leave the Shock better and the other team worse.
Indiana Fever: Yolanda Griffith, a recently acquired veteran, is more famous than anyone else on the roster. If you can remember that she played in the ABL, bonus points. (Don't expect anyone to ask what the ABL was.)
Los Angeles Sparks: Many good choices. Go with Candace Parker, and you can talk about the WNBA's weak dunks. Also, she was on the cover of ESPN The Magazine. Your friends read, right?
Minnesota Lynx: Seimone Augustus. Pronounced "See-Moan" and not "Simon-ee". Like Chamique, this one might be one to avoid.
New York Liberty: Janel McCarville, for all the jokes about WNBA players being lesbians. Make sure, however, that Janel is not standing behind you. She can beat you up. I'm serious. No, really, I'm serious. I'd just start running, and I'd thank Jesus that it wasn't Latasha Byears.
Phoenix Mercury: Diana Taurasi. (Just call her "Dee".) You can joke about her being the WNBA player that guy played in that hilarious "WNBA Live 09" YouTube Video. Furthermore, the video actually has Diana Taurasi's seal of approval - no joke. Dee said on Yardbarker that the guy playing her was a good fit, because his tits were at least as big as hers.
Sacramento Monarchs: Just go with Courtney Paris. You know, the girl who said she'd give her scholarship back if Oklahoma didn't win the championship? You can joke about how manly-looking WNBA players are.
San Antonio Silver Stars: Becky Hammon, the woman who joined the Russian Olympic Team when she couldn't make the US Team. Although you shouldn't argue that Hammon is a traitor to the country, or they'll accuse you of secretly liking women's basketball to be so concerned.
Seattle Storm: Sue Bird. Do not mention Lauren Jackson under any circumstances, or the strength of your "all WNBA players are ugly dykes" argument will be undermined.
Washington Mystics: Just mention that the Mystics have a banner in the Verizon Center for "Best WNBA Attendance". Even WNBA fans are laughing at that one.

6. Dunks: Only two WNBA players have dunked. Lisa Leslie is the first one. Candace Parker is the second one. Both play for the Sparks. However, the "weak dunks" argument is in effect only until the beginning of the 2013 season, when Brittney Griner will be drafted number one and make dunking a regular phenomenon. Just point out that she looks like a man. (You should always have a good "Juwanna Mann" joke in effect. Trust me, no one has ever heard them before.)

7. League setup: Two conference, Western and Eastern. Six teams in the Western, seven in the Eastern.

8. Overseas play: Since the WNBA doesn't pay much, players have to supplement their income by playing overseas. (Don't bother memorizing a lot of foreign teams. Just sprinkle "Euroleague" and "Eurocup" in the conversation and no one will check.) I would only pull out this tidbit if your credentials are seriously called into question. Else, the argument might be sprung on you that WNBA players are pretty much exhausted having no break time at all, which might partially excuse any deficiencies in play.

9. Apples and oranges: Do not mention that the average height of a WNBA player is 6'0". (If anyone on the Boston Celtics was under 6' he would have driven a stake through his heart.) Simply compare pituitary behemoths to players half a foot smaller with significantly lesser muscle mass, and pray that no body catches on.

10. WNBA Beat Writers: Another warning is that you want to be really careful when you establish your WNBA knowledge credentials. If you call yourself a WNBA beat writer, for God's sake, don't name a newspaper or a city. Only a handful of teams have local papers that provide anything close to a WNBA beat writer. Hell, they don't even send the same Associated Press guy two nights in a row. People will start asking you if you knew the figure skating beat writer or the curling beat writer at your paper and you'll be drowned in laughter.

Either that, or you just graduated from J-school and they sent you to the game as an intern - in which case, before I serve you another beer, Mac, I'm going to need to see some ID.

How to Make the WNBA

Someone replied in the comments section that they were interested in making the WNBA. I thought than rather bury the long response in the post that instead, I'd turn the response into a post of my own. (This is how you fill up blog space.)

Chariti, I have some good news and some bad news for you. The good news is that there might indeed be a spot open at the Atlanta Dream training camp. Since the March 25th post where you asked a spot, some things have changed. Katie Mattera has been waived. Kristen Haynie is now in Detroit. Even assuming that every person we think is going to show up shows up, there is still one empty spot at training camp left.

Now the bad news. Unless you're a recent graduate of a BCS conference - the ACC, SEC, Pac-10, Big 10, Big 12 or Big East - the chances are indeed very slim of you getting an invite. If a new graduate doesn't get the invite, the invite will probably be given to a veteran or not given at all. The WNBA is prejudiced in favor of a) players from the big-time conferences, and b) Europeans who have played on their national teams at the international level.

So how do you even get noticed by the Dream? Your best hope is to contact someone, and the optimal person to contact is Marynell Meadors, the head coach of the Dream. This is her address:

Marynell Meadors
c/o Atlanta Dream
83 Walton Street NW
Suite 500
Atlanta GA, 30303

The telephone number of the main office is 404 604 2626 and the fax is 404 954 6666. I would strongly suggest calling during business hours. Unfortunately, she has no direct e-mail. None of the coaching staff have public e-mails. The very best you can hope is to contact someone on the business operations staff. There are a few people on the e-mail list (the list is here) and they might forward your request to someone. I make no promises; I don't work for the Dream.

You probably want to send more than just a e-mail request. If you're serious about a professional basketball career, at the very least you should have a tape or a CD.

April Carson of Nova High School has this down pat. She hasn't even graduated college and she has newspaper clips and articles, game stats, and the most important thing of all -- video highlights. However, you might want to go a step better than April has. April has just posted highlights, and most coaches want to see a complete game film - they need to to find your weakness. It's easy to show your strengths with 2:30 of footage, but a coach wants to know what you're doing the other 35 minutes. So my first advice to you would be get some game film. The Women's Blue Chip Basketball League is a semi-pro league that might allow you someone good to play against if you don't have any professional game film.

All right. Let's assume you have the game film and you're still not wanted in training camp. You're going to have to get the WNBA's attention in some other way.

Let's suppose you're only a high school player. Well, the problem is that you can't go straight from high school to the WNBA. You can only join the WNBA when your college class (or the college class you would have been in if you had gone) graduates. The only exception is if you played overseas professionally. My understanding is that after the first two professional years of overseas ball, you can join a WNBA team.

Let's suppose that college is not for you, or that you graduated but have been overlooked. In which case, you have to come in through an alternate, lonely route. There's still the possibility that you could play overseas and be noticed there. In which case, you just have to get the job. You definitely have to have some kind of experience, even if it's just at the AAU level or one or two years of college.

The key then is to get your basketball profile with all of your stats, pictures, and highlight media. You need then to attend some sort of draft camp where European or Asian teams are looking for players. Eurobasket reports on these camps once in a blue moon.

Eurobasket.com is a good source for information. For example, they have a Eurobasket Job Market Board which includes women's leagues. The problem is that it costs...26 cents a day to access. Nothing is really free in basketball. There is a forum where you can go that occasionally lists teams that are actively looking for players. However, if you manage to represent yourself without an agent and fly off to play in, say, Eastern Europe, you have a difficult path. First, the homesickness can be crippling. Second, as an American, the coaches might have an unrealistic expectation of your level of performance. It's hard to play coach-player politics when you don't even speak the language.

Anyway, I hope you find what you're looking for. This probably wasn't the answer you're looking for, but I hope that it was in some way helpful.

My Life in Sports, Part I

I'm sure that like many basketball fans out there, I have never played basketball. Aside from required instances in junior high and high school where a basketball was thrust into our clumsy hands and we were split into teams and told to "play basketball" by a gym teacher, I have never played basketball at any competitive level.

Part of the excuse for this is that I grew up in a rural, unpaved area in Kentucky. One of the old stereotypes is that the suburban, midwestern players who play basketball at the pro level are great long-range shooters. This is supposedly because the bulk of their lonely existence was taking shots at a basket all day from long range because there was no one else to play with.

However, I didn't even have that much. The lone basketball hoop that I knew of must have been at least 15 feet high, up on a barn, next to rocky, gravelly terrain that would have made dribbling impossible. Basketballs were flimsy devices, willing to deflate on rough play - you needed both the basketball and the pump. We didn't have enough people where I lived for real teams. Even playing softball (never baseball) was impossible because you couldn't get the requisite number of players together. There was no supervision, there were no experienced players and there was no knowledge as to how to improve our skills. Most of my sports were whatever ball I happened to pick up at the time. Kickball and Nerf Football were quite popular.

If I could have played a sport growing up, it would have been Little League baseball. I asked more than one year for the privilege to play. Each time, I was turned down. There was just not enough money in the household budget for travel, equipment, fees, etc. This was the fifth Congressional district of Kentucky, a notoriously poor place.

Furthermore, there was no sports maven at home, ready to indoctrinate me. My father had few dislikes, but one of them was sports. It wasn't that he objected to me playing sports. It wasn't that he was a tie-dyed hippy, either, wanting to spare my tender mind from the evils of the competitive capitalist system. Quite the contrary. My father was tough in just about every sense of the term, a humorously obstinate battler that brooked no opposition. (Honestly, people were afraid of him.) And he decided, somewhere along his life path, that sports were for idiots. ("Did you know that 'fan' is short for 'fanatic'? That's what they are - a bunch a fanatics!") With only one television in the house and only three channels - NBC, CBS, and public television - he was the man who controlled the remote control and the chances were in the low one percents that he would sit down to watch televised sports, or to allow me and my mother to watch them as long as there was "something good on".

Since I was an odd duckling from day one, I wasn't the kind of guy they'd pick first for kickball at school. Anything I learned about sports would have to be learned through cultural osmosis.

At the time, only three adult sports crossed my horizon. The first was football. I was aware of it. We had a professional team - if it could be called that - in Cincinnati, the closest pro town to where I lived. They were called the "Bengals", or better, the "BENGALS" because the name BENGALS was spelled out on the side of their helmets. I also remember that they weren't very good.

Aside from whatever television I could pick up when Dad was working outside, there were two sources of information where I grew up in the 1970s. The first was the local newspaper. Local meaning "weekly", and most of the news was that from farm reports, what was going on at the local schools, some hard-right editorializing, etc. The other was the Lexington Herald-Leader. Both of those papers would write occasionally about the Bengals. Sometimes, the older men would mention them in passing. I don't remember what they said, but the jist of the matter was that the Bengals were not very good and no one should spend much time thinking about the state of the Bengals.

There was only one sport in Kentucky, and that was basketball. The head coach at the time was Joe B. Hall, an assistant under the legendary Adolph Rupp. There was a lot said about Joe B. that was quite uncomplimenary, the complaint being that he did not measure up to his legendary predecessor Adolph Rupp. Kentucky men's college basketball (there was no women's college basketball to speak of) was a big time sport, and already the Big Blue Nation was stoking its sense of entitlement. There was the expectation that we should win the national championship every year, or at least be in the final four.

Joe B. was a runner up to UCLA in 1975, and the Wildcats won a NIT title in 1976, back in the days when an NIT title really meant something. People were still unhappy. He won the whole thing with the Kyle Macy-era Wildcats back in 1978. However, everyone still demanded that Adolph Rupp rise from the grave. (*)

Fate - which mocks us all - was beckoning, although I couldn't hear its call. In 1975, the Kentucky High School Athletic Association reactivated the girls' state championship. My local high school's girls team turned out to be quite good. One day, in junior high school, the entire school was driven on a long bus ride to the Girls' Sweet Sixteen.

Kentucky is one of only three states - Delaware and Hawaii are the other two - that do not have a system separating the tiny schools from the big schools. It was possible for even the smallest schools to ride a run of luck to the tournament. Our county had four high schools up until 1970, and then these four schools were consolidated into one mega school with 1500 students. This brought a lot of basketball talent in one place. One of the smaller schools - Hazel Green - won the Boys' State Championship in 1940; basketball was not foreign to everyone where I grew up.

We had a coach by the name of Roy Bowling who would lead our high school team to at least 70 consecutive wins in girls' basketball. I didn't understand much more about basketball then aside from the obvious, namely that if you put the ball in the hoop you scored two points. We would win the second of three consecutive state championships in girls' basketball. During the 1979-80 season our winning streak was snapped and we failed to make it to the finals. However, the county team would win two more basketball championships before we were "de-consolidated" from a large school into two medium high schools in the 1990s.

This experience meant that the idea of women playing interesting basketball was not foreign to me. If women's basketball basketball wasn't any good, then why was the arena filled to capacity with screaming fans watching a girls basketball game? They couldn't have all been relatives and friends. And this was 1970s basketball. The game was still undeveloped from what it would become, and even I knew that what I was seeing was good basketball. I didn't know that this would set me up for the WNBA years later, and I'm sure that a lot of young women on those championship teams wished it was around then, too.


(*) I have followed the state of Kentucky men's basketball ever since without being a serious fan. Eddie Sutton stayed for four years and almost brought the Wildcats to the NCAA death penalty through his lack of control of the program. (His name is still a dirty word in some Kentucky households.) Rick Pitino brought his carpetbag to Kentucky, and won us a national title before convincing himself that he was a genius in pro ball as well as college ball. (He wasn't.) Tubby Smith was run out of town partly for being black (my take) and partly because he only won one NCAA championship. The Wildcats found their answer in Billy Gillispie, and in my opinion the Big Blue Nation paid for the sin of exiling Tubby.

Can You Be a Fan of the WNBA and Not of the NBA?

While following the various Twitter feeds, the talk turns to basketball. Many WNBA fans are distracted by the NBA Playoffs, which have finished their first round and are now moving into the conference semi-finals. WNBA fans talk about the amazing Boston-Chicago series which went a full seven games. Players like Chamique Holdsclaw and longtime reporters of women's basketball Twitter away regarding their observations during the NBA playoffs.

This begs the question: "can a person be a fan of the WNBA and not a fan of the NBA?"

The answer: yes. Because I'm one of those people. The real question should be, "how many WNBA fans are not NBA fans?"

As a side note, I read the Got Man Answers blog while looking for WNBA info. (There's no point in visiting, I just wanted to be able to point to a site.) The author "Man Answers" (or "Manswers") wishes to be the arbitrer of All Things Masculine, a Petronius of the frat. Someone asks him if one can still be "manly" (I suppose) and know about the LPGA. The author replies that the only way you can avoid losing manliness points is if:

a) you are a fan of the corresponding male event, or
b) you have a daughter, friend or relative on the team.

The telling quote:

It's ok for a man to love women's sports, but never at a level exceeding his love for the same men's sport, unless a loved one is a participant or social deviant terrorists are involved.

If that's not the definition of chauvinism - "extreme partisanship" - there isn't one. The word "chauvinism" would become officially devoid of meaning, to be replaced with "wiksdgo" or "fnord". The excuse would be that such a "manly man" (I can't help but laugh; the men who seek manliness search to fill an infinite void) would give for watching an WNBA game is that he loves basketball so much that his love even spills out to clearly inferior sports like the WNBA. To such a specimen, all I can say hope he got his cootie shot before the Liberty and Sparks tip off.

Here's the problem: I've tried to watch the NBA, but I'm just not a fan. Everything the haters say about the WNBA - that's it's dull, boring, predictable - applies to the NBA, but for different reasons.

* The season takes friggin forever. The regular season is virtually meaningless - I recently read Phil Jackson's latest book and he pretty much says so. To paraphrase PJ: "the regular season record would be nice for our fans, but we just want to get into the playoffs". With so many games, playoff contenders can build an insurmountable lead, and then phone it in from February onwards. If the players don't care about the outcomes of the games, why should I care? The WNBA's 34 game season is much more thrilling than the 82-going-on-250 game season of the NBA.

* The game takes friggin forever. I just don't have patience for 12-minute quarters. Ten, yes, twelve, no. That extra eight minutes is stretched to at least thirty minutes by fouls, commercials, and various time-out related activities. Why does every NBA game I watch appear to be The Most Boring Thing Ever?

* No one seems to play much defense. Hell, no one seems to even know how the game is played. One guy carries the ball, and stuffs it in with a dunk that looks...well, pretty much like every other dunk I've ever seen. (I have never figured out what is so amazing about dunking. Even supposedly spectacular dunks look pedestrian to me.) Sometimes, it's a one-handed dunk. Sometimes, it's a two-handed dunk. (When they do a three-handed dunk, wake me up.) The team might only have two designated scorers; anyone else touches the ball apparently by accident, shooting only when the 24-second clock is about to expire.

While this is going on, a half-hearted attempt at defense is usually attempted by the opposing team. I think four players - two on offense, two on defense - could walk off the court and no one would notice they were missing.

* Height simply dominates the game. Friend-o, a man who is six feet eight inches tall and can dunk a basketball is not interesting. It would be much more interesting if he was a tall, powerful specimen who couldn't dunk the ball. That would at least make him a character. The WNBA detractors say the rims in the women's game should be lowered; I counter that the men's rims should be raised. It's easy to shoot three percentage points better when you're a friggin foot closer to the basket from height alone.

Oh. But then they couldn't dunk so easily, now could they? Well, never mind then.

* I don't really like any of the players. Most of this is due to the preferential treatment they were given since seventh grade, which has caused some sort of free-standing ego disease.

* Anyone who might be a hero is cleaned up to the point of irrelevance by the NBA marketers. The NBA doesn't have heroes, it has salesmen. Yes, LeBron James is a great athlete, but his athleticism isn't enough to compel me to watch him. I don't know who he is or what he represents in the most existential sense of the term. He's an okay pitch-man. He can move product. He can score large numbers of points on the basketball court. But where does LeBron stand in relevance to me? What is LeBron James besides his athletic skill?

So there it is. My horrible secret. I just don't like the NBA. Maybe someone can enlighten me as to how I can approach the conundrum that is the NBA differently, but there you go. If this means I have to turn in my man-badge, well sheriff, you can find it on my desk. I'm keeping the gun. And as the saying goes, I don't need no stinkin' badges.

Working on ABL Stats

You might be wondering what I'm doing in the dead zones of WNBA news.

Aside from writing highly speculative posts, I'm busy working on some ABL stats and trying to get some information is over. I believe I have all of the 1997-98 data and all of the data from the 1998-99 truncated season.

Oddly enough, what I'm missing is information on games started. Funny to have games played for each of the players, but no info on games started. Bizarre.

I'm also fiddling around with Statis Pro Basketball. Don't worry, when the Dream season starts it will get busy.